Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a married father and apprentice sheet metal worker with no criminal history. He came to the United States as a teenager fleeing gang violence in El Salvador and applied for asylum. Last year, the U.S. government deported him without due process to a prison in El Salvador, a move the Supreme Court ruled was unlawful and ordered the government to remedy.

What happened next is what a federal judge called vindictive prosecution.

After the Supreme Court's ruling became a public defeat for the Trump administration, federal authorities revived a 2022 traffic stop in rural Tennessee, a speeding citation involving Abrego as a driver with passengers, that federal prosecutors had already reviewed and declined to pursue at the time. Abrego was indicted on human smuggling charges in Tennessee in May 2026, just weeks after the Supreme Court ordered his return.

U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw dismissed the case, finding the government had engaged in vindictive prosecution. The Campaign for Government Accountability has since filed a complaint with the New York Bar against Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, alleging he breached ethical obligations and abused public office by using the justice system for political ends. The complaint also raises questions about whether prosecutors in the Tennessee U.S. Attorney's Office pursued a case they believed lacked merit out of fear of losing their jobs under a Justice Department memo warning attorneys to advocate zealously or face consequences.

The government's response: appeal the dismissal and call the ethics complaint baseless.

A man with no criminal history was wrongfully deported, ordered home by the Supreme Court, then criminally charged using a years-old traffic stop the government had already passed on. He remains in legal limbo while the administration pursues an appeal of a ruling that called its conduct vindictive.

We are calling on the Department of Justice to drop its appeal of Judge Crenshaw's dismissal, on the New York Bar to open a full investigation into Todd Blanche's conduct, and on Congress to advance legislation protecting DOJ attorneys from political pressure and establishing clear consequences for vindictive prosecution. Kilmar Abrego Garcia has already lost enough. The government should stop.